Formal Frameworks and Grassroots Practice, Making Transitional Justice More Responsive to Local Needs by Centering Local Documentation Efforts in Northern Uganda

Transitional justice addresses the legacies of past human rights violations through mechanisms such as truth-seeking, accountability, reparations, and institutional reform. The African Union Transitional Justice Policy (AUTJP) emphasizes that these processes must be inclusive, context-specific, and grounded in each society’s historical, social, and political realities. It recognizes that beyond the traditional pillars of transitional justice, societies must develop contextually relevant approaches suited to their unique challenges. While transitional justice is often associated with political transitions, it is increasingly pursued in settings without political change or those experiencing ongoing conflict. Uganda serves as an example of such contexts; transitional justice is being pursued in the absence of a political transition and amid heightened repression and human rights violations. Despite the adoption of frameworks outlining various transitional justice measures, such as the 2007 Juba Agreement on Accountability and Reconciliation and the 2019 National Transitional Justice Policy, state-led transitional justice efforts have stalled due to limited political will. In response, grassroots actors in Northern Uganda have initiated local efforts, such as community-led documentation and archiving, to preserve memory, acknowledge victims, and promote healing. This research aims to understand and theorize the nature of innovation in grassroots-led community documentation in Northern Uganda. It examines how these documentation processes reshape the methods and objectives of transitional justice to address gaps in stalled state-led transitional justice processes and expand the traditional TJ paradigm toward a more victim-centered approach